The 51st UNB-OMB / UNH-CCOM Multibeam Sonar Training Course, co-hosted by the Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation, Brazilian Navy, will be held from 23-28 November 2009 at the Hotel Orizzonte, Niterói, RJ, Brazil and this will be first time the course has been conducted in South America. The Multibeam Course is a 36-lecture, 6-day course primarily designed to provide a theoretical and practical background in marine multibeam survey technology and techniques. The information is tailored for those using marine multibeam survey systems in both the traditional hydrographic survey field (for safety of navigation and nautical charting) as well... (read more)

Currently only ten to fifteen percent of the ocean floor has been mapped at resolutions of 100-metre pixel size or better and the vast majority of this mapped area is within territorial waters. One way to significantly increase seafloor coverage is to outsource data collection to non-hydrographic vessels or ships of opportunity. However, data currently being collected by these vessels are largely unmanaged, leading to possible redundant coverage and/or inconsistent quality. It is a good idea that the scientific and hydrographic communities make effective use of ships of opportunity in order to optimise data collection in the immense areas in... (read more)

Using CUBE Surfaces for Nautical Cartography and Dredged Measurements

This article is about the evolution of acoustic sounders imposed on Hydrographic Service’s new methodologies for the interpretation, handling and application of hydrographic information. Considering spatial resolution and high-density data acquired by multibeam echosounders (MBES), algorithms such as Combined Uncertainty Bathymetry Estimator (CUBE) are used in the processing workflow to generate depths and uncertainty estimates. Can bathymetric surfaces be considered the final survey product in exchange of the traditional shoals selection? IHPT conducted hydrographic surveys in order to evaluate CUBE processing for nautical cartography and for dredged volume calculation. Shoals validated by hydrographers were compared with CUBE estimated depths and... (read more)

CARIS has released a 64-bit version of its hydrographic processing software HIPS and SIPS. This new version HIPS and SIPS 7.1 will provide users who have access to a 64-bit computer the ability to handle large multibeam sonar datasets even faster. In-house tests revealed that the CUBE surface creation and Merge processes are now 15-30% faster respectively. The 64-bit technology also allows access to larger banks of RAM, increasing the ability to multi-task while processing. HIPS and SIPS supports over 40 sonar and Lidar formats, allowing it to process data from virtually any system configuration. The software also includes... (read more)

NetSurvey have recently completed two contrasting projects which they claim advance multibeam technology. The first project was for Pacific Engineering Company (PECO) in Russia and involved supplying personnel, software and multibeam hardware for an Ice Scour survey prior to pipelay operations. The survey, using Reson’s 8125 highest resolution multi-beam echosounder, identified sand wave fields whose height was only 3cms and easily determined the 20-30 cm deep ice scours. A total of nearly 1.8 Billion soundings were collected over the 31 days of survey, which works out at an average of 660 soundings per second. This data was handled by a... (read more)

Atlas Fansweep Coastal, the first of a new series of advanced Atlas Fansweep 30 multi-beam echosounders designed to exceed IHO standards over depths in excess of 600m, has been introduced by Atlas Hydrographic. Developed for both hydrographic survey and oceanographic research applications covering waterways and coastal regions extending to continental shelf boundaries, the system features enhanced levels of data quality to reduce general post-processing requirements. Operating between 100 and 200kHz, with broadband frequency coverage depending on water depth and conditions, it additionally features simultaneous multi-ping technology for concurrent transmission of multiple steered pings in a water column. This ensures significant... (read more)